Check the oven mitt is dry before you reach in
A damp oven mitt passes the heat straight through to your hand. How to check it, what to use instead, and why the pan handle turns in.
Put together from people's experiences of getting burned in the kitchen — mostly by an oven mitt that turned out to be damp, and by pans knocked off the stove — with the first-aid lines taken from the NHS and the American Burn Association rather than from the people telling their stories.
You reach into the oven, take hold of the tray through the mitt, and suddenly your hand is burning. The mitt was fine yesterday. What changed is that somewhere on it there was a little water: a splash from the sink, a wipe of a wet counter, steam from the pot.
Before you pick up anything hot, make sure the oven mitt or towel is completely dry. A damp mitt lets the heat straight through to your hand.
Many people say this, and in eleven it is described as a lesson people tend to learn the hard way, with a burn. This page is the way to learn it without one.
Why a damp mitt burns
A dry mitt or towel protects you because the cloth is full of tiny pockets of air, and air carries heat very badly. Water carries heat about twenty times better than air. Soak even a patch of the cloth and the air in that patch is replaced with something that passes the heat straight through, so the mitt works like bare skin wherever it is wet. Oil and grease do the same, some people note.
People argue about what happens next. Some people put the burn down to the water conducting the heat; five say the water turns to steam against the hot metal, and it is the steam that burns the skin. Both are true, and they happen together: the heat comes through first, and the steam adds to it. Some people add that a steam burn can be worse than a burn from touching the hot pan itself.
The trap, some people say, is the mitt that is mostly dry. A soaked mitt you would notice. A mitt with one damp corner, or a damp spot where your thumb goes, looks and feels fine until the heat arrives, and one person says a small patch of water you never noticed is enough. The same physics turns up well away from the kitchen: one person describes welders burned through sweat-soaked clothing, another says wet gloves get too hot to bear near steam pipes, and another that firefighters get steam burns when their gloves stay wet between fires.
The habits that keep the mitt dry
The main habit is the one in bold above: a squeeze of the mitt before the reach. A few more make it easier.
- Keep a second pair. One person says to have two sets, so when one gets wet you are not tempted to use it anyway.
- Pick a light colour if you cannot feel damp. One person points out that people with reduced feeling in their hands, from nerve damage for example, cannot sense moisture and have to see it, and dark mitts hide it; a light mitt or towel shows the wet patch.
- Wear a mitt on both hands, one person says, so a dropped dish does not end with your bare hand grabbing at hot metal.
- Hang a mitt over the handle of any pan left to cool on the counter, one person suggests, as a sign to everyone that it is still hot.
- Do not trust how the metal looks. One person says metal can be hundreds of degrees while still its normal colour, and another that burns often happen while taking food out of a pan rather than while moving the pan.
- Skip the cheapest mitts. Some people say the cheapest ones can fail and give little protection; for oven work, it is worth paying for a pair that is rated for the heat.
The first question below compares silicone, towels and welding gloves. Many people back silicone, because it does not soak up water in the first place.
Turn the pan handle in
The second habit is older, and it guards against a different burn: the pan that gets knocked or pulled off the stove. Some people say to turn pot and pan handles in, so they point over the back of the stove or to the side instead of sticking out past the edge, where someone walking past, or a child reaching up, can catch them. The US Fire Administration gives the same instruction, so that no one can bump a pan or pull it over, and the UK’s Child Accident Prevention Trust adds the other half, which one person here also gives: cook on the back rings or burners when you can. Some people describe their own near-misses or injuries from pot handles.
It is not only a rule for parents. In one discussion, all but one of the people who answered said it is a habit for anyone who cooks: one person started it because they were clumsy, before they had children to think about, and another says a dog can grab a handle and pull a pan down. One person notes that the back burners can be the weaker ones, and says the rule stays anyway.
The objection is comfort. One person says a handle pointing toward you is the least awkward way to flip food or slide a pan off the flame, and three in the same exchange answer that the turned-in handle is the safe position and, with children around, the necessary one. One reply says it becomes second nature. Another objection is that this is common sense and hardly needs saying; others answer that many people genuinely did not know, or did not do it, until they had children or saw an accident happen. People learned it at school, from parents or grandparents, or in restaurant jobs. One person says getting a partner to do it can take real persuading. And one says the answer for children is not to keep them out of the kitchen forever but to teach them to cook safely.
This page doesn’t cover how to childproof a stove for a toddler beyond the handles and the back burners — gates and supervision are not discussed — or what to do with a long-handled wok or a full pot whose handle cannot be turned. If you have a crawling or climbing child, a child-safety organisation’s full guidance is the place to look; the UK’s Child Accident Prevention Trust covers kettles and hot drinks as well.
Who this page is not for
If you have a serious burn right now, this page is not the tool: the first-aid steps and the numbers are at the top. If you cook for a living, your kitchen has its own conventions and rules about towels and mitts, and some people say some crews require mitts for anything heavy; this page is written for a home kitchen. And if the job is hot coals, a pizza stone or a wood-fired oven, the heat is beyond what this page covers, and the first question below is only the start of that argument.
Common questions
Silicone, a towel, or welding gloves — what should I use instead?
Whatever you use, the rule on this page is the same: it has to be dry. Beyond that, people split three ways. Many people recommend silicone mitts and holders: they do not soak up water or oil the way cloth does, they wash easily, and one person adds that they last longer. Keep two warnings with them. One person says a silicone mitt can get a bit wet and still protect you, but that is not the same as being waterproof, and the warning about water still applies in full to cloth mitts. And silicone can be slippery, especially when greasy, and clumsy with a heavy or full pan; one person layers a cloth mitt over a silicone one so the cloth takes the grease, and another suggests close-fitting silicone gloves without a lining for better grip. The quality varies too: one person says a silicone pad let them hold a hot tray for only about three seconds. Check the heat rating on whatever you buy rather than assuming silicone is enough. Professional cooks often use a towel instead, some people say — one thick dry towel, folded, because mitts are bulky and hard to keep clean — with the same warning: never a damp one, and a towel can dip into the food. Some people say some professional kitchens require mitts for anything above a certain weight, and one that a towel may not protect as well as a proper mitt. Rubber mitts can hiss when they are wet, one person says, but they pass far less heat than wet cloth. The cheapest mitts, some people warn, can give almost no protection at all. Then there are leather welding gloves, and here people split evenly. For them: they are sturdy, cover the forearm, stay dry inside and give good finger control for grilling, cast iron and hot coals. Against them: they are stiff, smell of chemical treatments, may not be food-safe, and the cheap ones shed fibres and dye; one former welder found them stiff and smelly, some people say they are made for sparks and hot metal rather than for holding a hot dish, and the claim that they insulate better than a purpose-made oven mitt was corrected by others. The split comes down to the job: everyday cooking points to silicone or a dry mitt, and the fierce jobs over a fire are where the welding-glove side makes its case.
Are there other kitchen habits like this one?
Some people add a knife habit that belongs beside the mitt: put knives into the dishwasher basket point down, so you cannot stab your hand reaching in to empty it, and never leave a knife in a sink full of soapy water, where it cannot be seen and a hand can find it. And some people give a rule that sounds odd until you think about it: if a knife falls, let it fall. Step back and do not try to catch it; one person says the catching reflex young cooks build up gets more dangerous as their hands slow down with age. A different page here, The steel hones, the stone sharpens, is about keeping knives sharp, which is its own kind of safety.
Same situation, another step
- Run the bite under warm waterSafety at home
- Keep the non-stick pan off the high flameSafety at home
Full tip: https://findangel.org/tips/check-the-oven-mitt-is-dry/ · FindAngel.org — free, always.